Expecting Rain

I only discovered this song a couple of weeks ago, and it's becoming one of my most favourite songs of all time..why did he never put it on Blonde on blonde?

He rewrote it as SOONER OR LATER (ONE OF US MUST KNOW) and *did* put it on Blonde On Blonde.

Funny how songs that did not make it onto an album are always considered as the better choice. The same regards to different takes of certain songs.

Isis, you are lucky to be discovering this now. What a thrill and an awakening when hearing this for the first time. I think they struggled through many takes of this and finally gave up. Lucky that we have this. Bob's not known for having much patience for recording. He's a live musician.

I like the song but I don't think either version i have merits many listens. The piano version has awful sound and the band version is incomplete.

Would like Bob to have revived this one during the NET while he still had a voice to do it justice. It would have fitted well with the material on Side 2 of Hard Rain too. But Bob seems to have permanently left it behind. Pity, as I think Sooner or Later only borrowed aspects of the song.

As fun as it would be to see him unearth this, it may be best to leave it alone and stand as it is. I'm having a tough time trying to imagine today's arrangement. Maybe with some different band members it could be pulled off.

a masterpiece but the piano take sucks

I don't think it sucks at all, but it is clearly meant to be a rough demo so the band knows how the song goes. The take on BS2 builds into something great but collapses during the last verse. Neither could have realistically been considered suitable for the album. There were MANY takes of this song attempted—19 to be exact—but the fact that the one selected for BS2 is incomplete suggests to me that there isn't a good complete take among them. By the time of the next recording session a few days later, he'd already completely rewritten it as (or, if you prefer, cannibalized the melodic structure into) SOONER OR LATER and the rest is history.

incorrect history. the two bear no resemblance

Dylan became frustrated and angry at the next Blonde on Blonde date, held three weeks into the new year during an extended break from touring. In nine hours of recording, through nineteen listed takes, only one song was attempted, for which Dylan supplied the instantly improvised title, “Just a Little Glass of Water.” Eventually renamed “She’s Your Lover Now,” it’s a lengthy, cinematic vignette of a hurt, confused man lashing out at his ex-girlfriend and her new lover. Nobody expected it would be recorded easily. (Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, interjects on the tape, just before the recording starts, that there is a supply of “raw meat for everybody in the band.”) The first take rolls at a stately pace, but Dylan is restless and the day has just begun.

On successive takes, the tempo speeds, then slows a bit, then speeds up again. Dylan tries singing a line in each verse accompanied only by Garth Hudson’s organ, shifting the song’s dynamics, but the idea survives for only two takes. After some false starts, Dylan exclaims, “It’s not right…it’s not right,” and soon he despairs, “No, x it, I’m losing the whole x song.” He again changes tempos and fiddles with some chords and periodically scolds himself as well as the band: “I don’t give a x if it’s good or not, just play it together…you don’t have to play anything fancy or nothing, just…just together.” A strong, nearly complete version ensues, but Dylan flubs the last verse. “I can’t hear the song anymore,” he finally confesses. He wants the song back, so he plays it alone, slowly, on his tack piano, and nails every verse. He reacts to his own performance with a little “huh” that could have been registering puzzlement or rediscovery. But Dylan would end up discarding “She’s Your Lover Now,” just as he would abandon a later, interesting take of an older song, “I’ll Keep It with Mine.”

Okay, so what you're saying is the solo piano take came after the others, and thus was not for the purpose of showing the band how the song went. I'll buy that. It would be nice of you to clarify who the source you're quoting is, though.


If you're talking about SHE'S YOUR LOVER NOW and ONE OF US MUST KNOW, you're dead wrong there. They bear a marked resemblance both in the chord changes and in the actual vocal melody. Go listen again. And I'd say it's no coincidence that the session on 1966-01-21 was devoted entirely to SHE'S YOUR LOVER NOW and ended with Dylan unsatisfied with it, and then the next session on 1966-01-25 was devoted almost entirely to SOONER OR LATER.

ain't buying it.

source is sean "the shill" wilentz

Apparently, the phrase "sooner or later" didn't even appear until the 5 or 6 takes in to the session. It would be most fascinating to hear how this stunning song began life, it's link to the previous session and what actually happened on January 21.

When you look at the session logs, there are around 8 or 9 takes of She's Your Lover Now listed as complete takes. With the exception of Farewell from Times Changing', I don't believe Dylan ever abandoned a song in the studio.

The only session that doesn't seem to correspond to the logs is Like A Rolling Stone. Many takes are listed as complete although it seems they are long fragments and only one true complete take exists. But Bob Johnston was in charge of the Blonde on Blonde sessions and not Tom Wilson. I really think after 9 hours of rehearsing and playing that they got through many complete takes. Dylan may not have been happy...hard to say.

Hopefully, Jeff Rosen will tell The Complete Blonde On Blonde story sooner than later. In fact, this year would be great ( hint, hint). I've already told everyone at work I will plan my vacation around this release and know I could die a happy man.

Elmer, Mim and Fanfull,
Great research and memories of this wonderful piece of music trivia. Nice to see all these snippets, that we hear about over the years, all in one place. Thanks for your posts!

i love this song, i was only listening to it the other day.
I would love to hear a properly mixed version of the piano take, turn up on the Bootleg Series. The way it sounds on the circulating version, makes it seem like we are only hearing what was recorded on the vocal mic, because the piano is completely buried in the mix. Its nearly an acapella!
It would be highly unlikely that this was the only mix of the song made, i guarantee there is a properly mixed version hiding in the vaults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMd_bgyilV0

I think the solo piano version is the song in its best form, if not its best performance. The breakdown take (with the Hawks?) loses some of the lyric and vocal nuances, forcing the tempo toward Memphis Blues Again when the song is really more akin to Ballad of a Thin Man. These are the only two versions I've heard. A properly recorded and better sung solo piano version would have improved Blonde on Blonde, especially if Pledging My Time were dropped to make room.

Though the song shares some things with Sooner or Later, there are enough striking differences that, had the slower solo piano version been included, the album overall would sound even more original and beautiful. One could argue for dropping Rainy Day Women or Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat, but both are era artifacts that I think make the album more significant even if musically they are throwaway songs. Pledging My Time is just a time-killing drag, relative to all the other songs. Anyone could have written it. Dylan could have saved it for Modern Times and no one would have missed it.

So tell us how you really feel about Pledging My Time!

Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn't it?

This song is in my piano book "The Songs Of Bob Dylan (from 1966 through 1975) Cherry Land, Alfred A. Knopf,
but this is the first I've ever heard it, thanks to CrimsonFlames for the link. It sounds kind of weird, like the
piano needs tuning, but it's charming in it's own strange way.

Heres the other version Leocadia. its is on the bootlege series vol.2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzVbZFnh90

I get really depressed when I listen to the Bootleg Series version because I know it never finishes.

If you already KNOW that it 'never finishes' then why allow depression to set in?

Thanks. That's more like it. The lyrics, pretty darned interesting, like stoned self-conversation.

"You, you, you just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can't you reach?"
"And you, just what do you do anyway?"
"And your old man, he, he just wants to follow me aroun' and talk about vacuum cleaners."

Of the two versions, I prefer the solo piano take although I would like to have heard it in a more polished form.

I wouldn't drop Pledging my Time though. For me, a lot of the enjoyment of Blonde on Blonde is in the sound, not just the lyrics of the album. The combined sound of harmonica and electric guitar is breathtaking on this track. Lyrically it is just a blues filler so I do see your point, but I still love it.

I am dubious! I'll 'go listen again' if you quote the section of OOUMK that most resembles the alleged antecedent.......

If anything, it's a re-write of Like a Rolling stone.

Piano version............Oh my x God!.............Perfection.